CA Chapter Twelve (Patreon)

The moons had vanished behind the trees and the sun was cresting the horizon by the time the last of Alpha’s debuffs vanished and she was able to stand without help. Opening her inventory, she pulled out a thick, purple cloak and wrapped it around herself, trying to protect herself from the first faint rays of sunlight. Beside her, Amy stood, stiff and awkward.

Alpha was digging through the cumbersome interface the game had given her for controlling her ‘thrall’. It looked like someone had taken the standard interface meant to allow a player to tell their own Zombie what to do while they were away, hacked chunks of it out, and then put in new pieces without running it through a grammar or spell-checker. There were even a few places where it looked like they’d left the raw code visible, and she had no idea what those sections were supposed to do.

“Holy schnoodle, how did these people even graduate from high school?” Alpha muttered, poking at a string of gibberish involving a lot of brackets, strangely placed commas, and semicolons with no apparent purpose. In the middle of the mess was the word ‘Follow’, and she felt a flood of relief when a familiar prompt appeared, urging her to select a target. The only name on the list was her own, so she selected it, and Amy’s body shifted so she was looking in Ava’s direction.

Alpha took a few cautious steps further up the road, and when the distance grew to about ten feet, Amy took a single step to close the gap.

Myles whooped. “You got it!”

Alpha shot him a narrow-eyed look. “No thanks to you.”

He smirked and shrugged. “The code for the vampire race is a nasty little amalgamation of encrypted original code, and chunks they stole from the other races. I did what I could with it, but without being able to read the encrypted part, I don’t dare change any of the unencrypted bits. Not now that you are one, anyway. I might fix whatever’s broken, or I might break the whole thing and kill you or make you a screaming murder vamp.”

Alpha snorted, pulling her hood further forward around her face as the sun crept higher in the sky. “Let’s not. I just wish we could figure out how to get her to call her horse so we could ride to the dungeon, instead of walking.”

Myles grinned and struck a pose, pointing down the road. “At least now we can start walking. Dungeon ho!”

Alpha took the hint and set her feet on the road towards the summit. The entrance to the tunnel that led to the dungeon where their friends waited was deep in the foothills, and she wouldn’t be able to use her [Vampiric Stealth] while Amy was Following her. Every minute they lingered was a minute the sun’s light grew stronger.

You have lost 10 Drops of Blood due to Direct Sunlight.

Alpha swore and sped up to a jog.

(===||:::::::::::::::>

They only saw one other player on the road before they left it, but it was the first confirmation Alpha had that she was truly off Veralt’s server and back in the real game. In spite of Myles’ assurance that they were free of the scientist’s warped world, she still hadn’t quite believed it until the willowy elven player rode past them, almost running Amy down with her horse. Filled with sheer relief, Alpha didn’t even flip the other player off as Amy reoriented herself with plodding, stiff movements.

“Why is she so awkward?” Alpha asked as she settled back into her jog.

“I think it’s because she’s still in there,” Myles answered, though he sounded uncertain. “Zombies are controlled by the same system that controls NPC movement, so they can actually be more graceful when the player logs off, especially if they were using a headset and gloves, instead of a pod. If some part of Amy is trying to take control of her avatar, it could cause this. Vampires were supposed to be able to control enthralled NPCs and Zombies, not a fully conscious player. We’re actually taking advantage of a loophole in the code, and the player could potentially fight it, if they were aware enough. It may actually be a good sign that Amy is more cognizant of the situation than we think.”

Myles paused as they drew closer to a large cart filled with flat gray stones. It was half-hidden behind the bushes lining the road, and a young man lay on top of the stones, snoozing in the faint sunshine that filtered through the trees. Raising a hand, Myles said, “Hi there, Jiminy!”

The young man, barely more than a boy, really, sat up, his hat falling off his face and landing in his lap. “I wasn’t slee-! Oh, it’s you. Hello, Mr. Myles.” He grinned, a puckish expression that reminded Ava of Myles himself. “You’re back already. And your friend woke up!”

Myles nodded. “She did. And apparently you fell asleep,” he teased. “I thought you were supposed to guard the stone until the workers arrived this morning. I didn’t see much guarding going on a minute ago.”

Jiminy grinned and scratched at his tousled brown hair. “I was just usin’ my other senses for a minute. Training them up, you might say.”

Myles laughed. “I see. Or,” he said, slyly, “maybe I didn’t see.” He flipped something toward Jiminy, and the object glittered golden in the sun, before the boy snatched it from the air in a movement almost too fast to see. “Just like you didn’t see me. Right?”

Jiminy nodded agreeably, and a gold coin flickered between his fingers before he flipped it into the air and made it vanish again. “Sure thing, Mr. Myles. Just, ah,” his eyes flickered to Ava, “so long as we’re all on the same page.”

Myles nodded, and Alpha followed suit when he jabbed her in the ribs with a sharp elbow. Her thick cloak muffled the force of it, but she still glared at him as she said, “I didn’t see anything.”

Jiminy grinned again, then grunted slightly as he swung his legs out and dropped to the ground near where the wagon’s tongue dug into the soft, moist earth. “S’pose I’d better get to guardin’, then,” he said, “just as soon as I get myself some bumbleberries from that patch I saw just down by the stream.” He gave a little wave as he ambled off toward the distant sound of trickling water, and Myles urged Alpha toward the crack in the rock that had been mostly hidden by the wagon and Jiminy’s body.

“Bribing children, now?” Alpha muttered, as she climbed over the shifting pile of stones.

“Ha!” Myles chortled. “That one hasn’t been a child since the day he was spawned. He’s a scallywag and a scoundrel, and he has a skill or two that help him decide if a person is going to cause trouble or not.” He jumped nimbly down into the shadowed crevice, and held a hand up to help Alpha down. Ignoring it, she leaped down easily, and he smirked as he took Amy’s hand instead, though she didn’t seem aware of his assistance.

Once all three of them were safely within the tunnel mouth, he led the way into the darkness, unsheathing his slender, graceful sword so its glow could illuminate their path. “You remember I told you that all of the NPCs in Veritas Online were seeded with a fragment of one of the real people Amy and Bridget made copies of?” He tilted his head toward the vanished Jiminy. “That one has a piece of Amy herself in him, and it makes him a scamp as well as a good judge of character. When I came out of that hole last night, he shook me down for a gold as a toll, and sent me on my way.”

Alpha shook her head. “Seems like he’s a little too young to be out here by himself.”

Myles nodded, then shrugged, stepping around a particularly large root that protruded from the rocky floor. Everywhere there was stone or earth, the ceiling, walls, and floor of the passage were unnaturally smooth, but occasionally roots, moss, or fungus disturbed the regularity of their surroundings.

“His job isn’t to stop anyone trying to go in or out of the tunnel. Once it’s finished, it’s supposed to be a road between Vargo and Refuge, after all. His job is just to let the Queen know if anyone finds it before they’re ready to make knowledge of the passage public. I have no doubt that in spite of promising not to tell anyone we came through, he’ll report us as soon as his replacement shows up.”

Alpha hesitated, then dodged as she nearly whacked her head on a dangling root. “What will she do?”

Myles hummed thoughtfully. “Nothing, probably. Maybe move up her timeline a bit. William already told her about the dungeon, and she knew once Travelers found out, we’d flood the place. She’ll also know, though, that we aren’t likely to tell anyone, since we’re obviously trying to keep it a secret ourselves. We get a bonus if we’re the first to complete the dungeon, so it’s in our own best interests to keep quiet about it, at least until then. She has enough on her plate without worrying about three idiots who are probably just going to get themselves killed.”

Something stirred in the darkness ahead of them, and Alpha pulled her longsword from her inventory, holding it ready. A ghostly white centipede as long as her leg skittered out of the darkness, and she sliced at it, cutting off its head in one easy sweep of her blade. In front of her, Myles used his glowing blue sword to chop another centipede in half. For a few moments, the silence was filled with scuttling and the meaty thwacks of their weapons, and then it was over.

You have slain Cave Centipede x5.

“I hate these things,” Alpha muttered, leaning down to loot the corpses. “Though I’m glad they’re a low enough level they’re easy to take out.” The insect she was touching began to dissolve into Fertile Soil, and three Centipede Legs entered Alpha’s inventory.

Myles nodded. “Once they get the road finished, the mobs won’t attack anyone who stays on the path, but in the meantime, it’s good that this is still a newbie area. Over time, the tunnel will develop new branches, these guys will level up, and anyone who goes further in thinking they’re all like this may not like what they find.”

Once they finished looting the defeated mobs, they continued down the straight, wide passageway, though they shifted their formation so Alpha was in the front, followed by Amy, and Myles brought up the rear. It was sheer luck that the centipedes hadn’t gone for Amy, and Alpha had no idea how or even if she could get the woman to defend herself.

They fought two Greater Voles, a Lesser Huntsman Spider, and another small group of centipedes. Even Myles had stopped making quips by the time they finally reached what Alpha thought was the very center of the tunnel, where a symbol of four intersecting, pointed ovals was carved into the wall.

Alpha hesitated as she lifted her hand to touch it, and gestured to Amy. “Does she have to activate the touchstone herself, or will she come because she’s my thrall?”

Myles shrugged nonchalantly, and even in the dim light of his blue sword, Alpha could see his eyes twinkle with mischief.

She sighed. “All right, out with it.”

“Why don’t you try asking her?” he asked, innocently.

“Ask her what?” Alpha said, resting her fists on her hips.

“To touch it,” Myles said, indicating the symbol.

Growling, Alpha pulled up the clunky thrall interface, and started flipping through it with a bit more vigor than she probably really needed. “This thing is Feisting useless,” she muttered, swiping it away after a few moments of scrolling. Glaring at Amy, even though she knew none of this was the other woman’s fault, Alpha snapped, “I wish you’d just touch the symbol already.”

Instantly, Amy reached out and did just that, vanishing a moment later.

Alpha turned her glare on Myles. “I can give her verbal commands? Can’t you ever, just once, tell me how to do things the easy way instead of waiting for me to work it out for myself?” she demanded.

Myles grinned back and asked, “Can’t you ever just start by doing things the easy way?” He reached out and touched the crossed wings, vanishing after Amy.

Alpha sighed and rubbed her eyes. Annoying as it was, he was right. She always had to do things the hard way first. Hell, the first time she ever fell in love, it had to be with the digital copy of a woman the world believed to be dead, and to top it off, said digital copy was the most annoying, sneaky, just generally aggravating person she had ever met.

And Alpha still felt more alive than she had in almost two years. Shaking her head, she reached out and placed her hand on the stone wall, imagining that she might feel just the tiniest bit of warmth lingering from Myles’ hand, and entered the dungeon.